Homing in on city blueprint

PUBLISHED: 14:24 06 July 2006 | UPDATED: 11:50 04 May 2010

YOUR front page story last week concerning a proposed new house building scheme in Ely (500 new homes planned) was timely, as East Cambridgeshire District Council is currently preparing the Local Development Framework (LDF), which will set out where devel

YOUR front page story last week concerning a proposed new house building scheme in Ely (500 new homes planned) was timely, as East Cambridgeshire District Council is currently preparing the Local Development Framework (LDF), which will set out where development is to take place.

The Government set a target of 8,600 new homes to be built across the district between 2001 and 2021.

Some of this new housing has already gone up and there is planning approval in place for other schemes, but the locations of further new sites is yet to be decided.

We have just completed a round of public consultation seeking people's views as to where housing, employment, retail and traveller site development should be located.

Your article focused on one potential site for housing development in Ely, which you referred to as being "at a very early stage".

However, other sites have also been proposed, and appraisal of all of them is still at a similarly early stage and no decisions have yet been made.

All the proposed sites will be considered and recommendations will go before councillors later this year. A report will then be made public in March setting out their chosen preferences for development sites, so that people can again put forward their views on them.

Your article rightly highlighted some of the implications of the recent rapid growth of Ely, for example, the increasing need for affordable homes and leisure facilities.

Ely is already regarded as the fastest growing city in Europe, and that pace of growth is set to continue. The council welcomes an informed debate on the issues surrounding development, and so we urge people to carefully study the proposals set out in the LDF, which can be seen on our website at eastcambs.gov.uk